It’s been a long time between drinks (sorry) but I’ve finally found some time to upload some new pics. These are from our last big camping trip which took us from Perth, through Cape Leveque, across the Kimberley via the Gibb River Rd, into Darwin via Katherine National Park, through Litchfield and Kakadu National Parks and then back home via Uluru (Ayers Rock) and the Great Central Rd.

I have more pics to process and upload and will do those as soon as I find the time.

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to spend the weekend with a few mates over in Pt Lincoln (south of Ceduna, South Australia) where we cage dived with Great White Sharks (up to 5m), Sea Lions and Tunas (up to 70kg). We had an awesome weekend and would thoroughly recommend that people consider doing it (you don’t need your scuba diving ticket).

I’ve put together a short video from the trip here: diveIT 2012. Most of this footage was taken with a friends GoPro (the original one, not the GoPro2) which is a great little unit.

Over the Christmas holidays I took the family camping down to Augusta. Normally during these Christmas camping trips I am too lazy to go out and shoot my landscape photos however this trip I was filled with enthusiasm and vigour and spent 3 nights out at different locations shooting long exposure panoramics (stitched panos). At the time I noticed that during the photo review on the back of the camera there sometimes seemed to be a line of light running across the photo about a third of the way up however without a laptop to properly check things I assumed that maybe my camera LCD was playing up…

On getting home and reviewing my shots, there was that line, bright as anything and spoiling 80% of all my shots… After some research and worrying about faulty sensors etc I finally realised and proved what the issue was. On my camera’s viewfinder there’s a little closable door which closes the viewfinder to stop light from entering at the back of the camera when you don’t have your eye against it (which I didn’t as I was taking long (30sec+) exposures). DUH. New lesson learnt, RTFM (Read The F#@#$G Manual) and fully understand what your camera does and how you should operate it before wasting those pixels on unrecoverable photos.

At least I’ll know for next time, lets hope I remember to do it though..

I’ve recently been looking for a fully manual camera, that shoots in RAW, takes a good shot (i.e. has a good sensor and lens), takes HD video, is simple enough for my wife and kids to use and is small… That’s not too much too ask is it??

I did have my heart set on the new Canon S100 which has just been released (late 2011) however after many hours of research with multiple visits to camera dealers to handle the different camera models I’ve eventually settled on the Olympus PEN mini E-PM1.

Straight up I’ll admit it’s not ‘compact’, nor is it particularly pocket’able however it is MUCH smaller and lighter than my Nikon D700 dSLR and with the little Lowepro Edit 100 bag I bought at the same time I find it ticks all my boxes.

Will these mirrorless, inter-changeable lens format cameras be the death of the SLR?

I’m still getting to know my new camera but so far have been really impressed by its handling and picture (and HD video) quality. I hope to post some “Tony Budge Photography” website worthy shots soon after I’ve taken it camping over Christmas.

OK, lots more shots taking with lots more reading of techniques and tips from our friend Google. I’ve been trying for a while now to capture the little mushroom style water droplet shots where the water creates a little mushroom looking umbrella. Anyhow, after some more reading I’ve learned that do this you need to let two drops of water go, 100milliseconds apart (that’s 10 drops per second) and as the first drop lands and causes the column of water to rise up, the second falling drop smashes into the column and hey presto you get the mushroom umbrella…

This is all easier said than done as you need to get you water drops falling at the required rate in a consistent fashion and then capture the whole scene which is happening in less than a tenth of a second.. Some people are right into this style of photography and have fancy electronic timers and solenoid valves to electronically time and capture everything and they achieve a very high success rate of good pics however for me where I’m just playing I’m doing it hard core and trying to do everything by hand.

So how did I go? After setting up my Mariotte Siphon to control my water drops and then took over 300 shots and managed to capture about 8 mushroom umbrella’s of which only two are really any good. However the whole thing was great fun and I’ll be back out there tonight taking more shots this time though I’ll be using milk as the liquid..

Over the last few days I’ve been playing with form photography,which to me represents shooting things that create interesting and engaging shapes.

The two types of form photography I’ve been experimenting with are smoke and water droplets. I’m still trying to improve my technique, consistency and results but I feel I’m starting to get some interesting shots. Admittedly they are unlikely to ever sell but who cares, I’m enjoying the process and results.

Following are a couple of examples of my efforts to date, please let me know what you think.

Firstly, apologies for the (extremely) long time between posts… I created this blob with the intention of posting infrequently but a whole year between posts… That’s a bit long I think. I will endeavour to post a little more frequently in future.

Now, onto the purpose of this post.

A while back I created a Google Knol which is Googles way of capturing a ‘unit of knowledge’. My Knol was a “Photographers Guide to Karijini” and it’s just been sitting there not doing anything since. So I thought why not share it so here goes: Click on this link.

To my millions of fans who don’t even know this blog exists yet, I am pleased to announce that my new blog is ‘officially open’ (thunderous applause and cheering ensues).

Seriously, welcome to my blog and the 1st post! I intend to use this blog as an ad-hoc mechanism to capture my thoughts and provide insights and information relating to my photography, including my techniques and tips, and the travelling I do to get to some of these beautiful locations.

To set the expectation, I am not intending to update this blog on a regular basis and at present I only expect to be posting a new entry every week or two.

Hopefully by building this blog, the people will come and they will find my rhetoric informative, useful and amusing.

As you may have guessed, I do not take myself too seriously and I am always happy to discuss my photography, particularly if you’re interested in providing me with your honest and constructive thoughts and opinions. Honestly, if you don’t like one of my photo’s please feel free to let me know why so that I can learn and improve my process and techniques.